Monday, February 28, 2011

T-Mobile to get Orange fixed-line and NFC products this year

Products from Orange’s portfolio to be made available to T-Mobile customers before the start of 2012

Everything Everywhere confirmed to Mobile News it will make its Orange fixed-line and NFC business and consumer products available to T-Mobile customers by the end of 2011.

The company was responding to criticism after it said it would not launch new products, including NFC contactless payment (Q2) and its business focussed Pocket Landline service on T-Mobile, leading many to suggest it is favouring Orange.

But Everything Everywhere vice president for wholesale and M2M Marc Overton (pictured) said these products, as well as fixed-line services including broadband, which T-Mobile does not have in its offering, will be available by the end of the year.

Overton said: “As soon as the underlying architecture is stable and customers are on that, then T-Mobile customers will have fixed-line products. The plan is to make them available by the end of the year.”

Everything Everywhere vice president of brands and communications Steven Day added: “Pocket Landline was an Orange product before the joint venture, so it was always going to launch on Orange first.”